


Chaos and Eternal Night

by Onelove



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Developing Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 03:52:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onelove/pseuds/Onelove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The devil is the most devilish when respectable. Hannibal certainly intends to live up to his legacy. Sometime after 1x10.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chaos and Eternal Night

  **Chapter 1**

Another day, another series of patients will walk through his office door, carrying with them tales of personal anguish and burdens of guilt that they would carefully reveal to his ears alone, while he nods in apparent understanding. Monotonous, such intimate revelations hardly fazed him anymore. He would dispense with the usual probing questions and after their hour was up, his patient would leave, closing the door on another tedious and unremarkable session.

That is not to say that all of them leave him verging on the edge of boredom, sometimes, not often enough unfortunately, he encounters a more interesting specimen of the human mind.

Will certainly fell into that unique category of individuals.

While most of his patients blindly line up at his door like sheep begging for guidance, dear Will never had. His very presence within these walls breaks the routine that has become his practice. Unexpected and unabashedly modest with his rare gift, it made him all the more alluring to someone like Hannibal who relishes in life's greatest creations.

Everything else paled in comparison to the existence of such an exceptional young mind, at once able to empathize with the very essence that makes Hannibal who he is, hiding under lock and key behind a collected but charming facade, while at the same time, remaining hopelessly blind to the entire charade being performed before his very eyes. A fine line exists between the mask and the real portrait, but Hannibal deems the risk of discovery a fit price to pay to have the luxury of watching the young agent’s mind at work. For years, Hannibal had spent a very lonely existence, but now that Will Graham had burst like lightning across his crimson tainted life, he had left him irrevocably craving for more. Yearning for friendship, for the only person who had the strength to look into his abyss and not be terrorized by what he would witness there, but rather understood him.

Dared he even hope, accept him?

These are fickle notions perhaps, but Hannibal is a ruthless manipulator if nothing else, working in double entendres and ellipses. Much sooner than he’d anticipated, the unstable FBI agent had fallen prey to his web of deceits, not even struggling to get out, and remaining blissfully oblivious to the lion crouching next to him and ready to pounce.

The taste of Will’s blood would be that much sweeter on his tongue, especially coming from such a trusting beating heart.

Poor Will had no clue what was hiding in plain sight. The devil is the most devilish when respectable, after all, which had provided some measure of inspiration for Hannibal in the creation of his polished _person suit_.

To better dupe and ensnare his prey.

His morning musings were nevertheless cut short when the clock struck the hour, signaling another appointment. Before welcoming his patient, Hannibal still takes the time to tidy things up, perfectly aligning his agenda in parallel with the edge of the old rosewood desk. Having done that, only then does he rise to go answer the door.

“Hello Will, please come in,” says Hannibal, ushering him in.

Baring a brief quirk of the lips and a small nod, Will briskly enters.

After closing the door, Hannibal regains his seat facing Will as the other man sits slightly hunched over himself, scrubbing his hands down his unshaven face.

“A package was left on my porch this morning,” Will says before pausing and taking a deep breath. “A bloody ear in a box. I dropped it off at the BAU so they could run some tests.”

Will, fidgeting in his seat, stares at Hannibal expectantly.

“Do you think you have an admirer Will?” replies Hannibal, inflecting in his speech just a measure of the simmering resentment he feels for whoever decided to start toying with his favorite source of entertainment.

“An admirer? I don’t know.” Will says, his voice betraying his doubt. “It’s not like I fit the profile of the Elkridge Crucifier and Freddie Lounds stopped mentioning me in her articles weeks ago.”

Hannibal remains silent.

“The killer, from what we know, only executed a retired English teacher before nailing him to the wall of an abandoned farm in Elkridge,” says Will before standing up and starting pacing.

“And how does that make you feel,” says Hannibal. “Having received such an unusual, let’s say, gift?”

“Just great! Like I needed this on top of everything else.”

He shrugs, standing still besides Hannibal’s ladder, at a loss for words. The doctor keeps his eyes trained on Will as he tugs at his sleeves and looks at anywhere but him.

Looking even more peaky than usual with a thin sheen of sweat collecting on his brow, Hannibal doesn’t remember ever seeing Will this ragged. He wonders how many hours of sleep he manages in a single night, between the nightmares and the sleepwalking, there is precious little time left for any of it. The tangy smell of encephalitis he once detected on Will is not making him any better, either. Will is, at best, a walking ticking bomb as his brain keeps on blazing within the confines of his skull.

The encephalitis is an interesting new development, an unforeseen variable that can affect their relationship in a myriad of different ways.

Hannibal wonders how best to manipulate the naïve young man with this information.

“Let’s hope for your sake that Jack finds something on the package. A clue to figure out the identity of the sender,” Hannibal calmly says. “Obsessions are known to escalate terribly quickly in some cases and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, Will.”

He is rewarded with a small smile for his concern as Will removes his glasses and regains his chair, sitting on the edge of his seat.

“It’s nothing, we’ll find whoever did this.”

Hannibal nods, but he sincerely doubts so. He will need to conduct an investigation of his own.

Will is _his_ mongoose to play havoc with and not anyone else’s plaything. Someone has overstepped his boundaries; Hannibal considers it very rude indeed.

Despite his mind screaming vengeance in shades of red, Hannibal’s inscrutable countenance gives nothing away as he listens to Will describing in vivid details his recurring nightmares due to the Elkridge Crucifier being still on the loose from the authorities.

Will sees himself impaling faceless people to walls and flaming crosses. With a bloodstained hammer and a thirst for redemption.

To absolve past wrongs with his own bare hands.

When he closes his eyes at night, his dreams bleed into a crimson canvas that he is afraid of never waking up from. The sharp edges of reality are smoothing out all around him, making it at times a challenge to tell the difference between Will Graham’s life and someone else’s twisted fantasy. Will hates feeling so helpless as his grip on reality loosens.

Hannibal listens on, appearing sympathetic to Will’s plight, yet he can’t deny being secretly pleased with his empathetic distress worsening.

Back and forth they exchange ideas and theories pertaining to the case, as Will slowly calms down from this morning’s incident. Hannibal offers unusual insight as is customary for him to do and Will promises to check up on some of those leads. Hannibal would like to believe that the young agent leaves his office in better spirits.

The rest of the day is relatively dull in comparison and his mood only improves when returning home and preparing tonight’s dinner after having removed both his suit jacket and waistcoat and rolled up his sleeves. An expensive bottle of Sangiovese wine is opened to accompany him during his cooking while Bach’s music plays softly from the living room.

On tonight’s menu: parmesan crumbed IT Technician cutlets.

Delectable.

It is a solitary dinner, but he enjoys the calm atmosphere as he ponders further upon a troubled Will. How far can he still be bended and stretched before the inevitable collapse?

Such an event would prove terribly bittersweet; Hannibal hopes that time is still on his side.

The dinner over and the dishes all done by hand, leaves him with little else to do for the rest of the evening. There is no retribution to be paid for tonight, his freezer is quite full already. He checks the hour and noticing that it is a little over nine o’clock, decides to make one last phone call before retiring to bed. He is a concerned friend, after all.

The phone rings three times before someone finally picks up.

A sleepy and stuttering Will answers.

“Hello?”

“Hello Will, I’m terribly sorry if I’ve woken you up,” Hannibal slowly says. “I was merely calling to see how you were and if there’d been any new development on your mystery package”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Will says. “I’m glad you called.”

“More nightmares?”

Hollow laughter is all he hears at the end of the line for a few seconds.

“Yes, how did you guess?” Will says, voice unsteady.

“I’m very perceptive, as you well know,” Hannibal replies, a smirk dancing at the edge of his lips.

Will remains silent as Hannibal imagines his slight nod of the head in agreement.

“We haven’t found anything yet about the package, but Katz is still hopeful. Nothing new about the crucifier either,” Will says.

Tired and uneasy this morning, Will does not sound any better at this late hour. Striking him as being more dejected at the state of things, more than anything else.

Perhaps he could help.

After asking Will if he is considering going back to sleep immediately and receiving a firm negative answer, he asks him whether he’d taken the time to eat anything at all tonight. Will only mumbles incoherencies at the end of the line. He hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. And that didn’t really even count, for the delivery of the morning had killed his appetite. No, Hannibal didn’t have to trouble himself with anything. He’d fall asleep eventually, in any case.

“I'm afraid that I must insist,” Hannibal says. “You are clearly far from all right, especially considering this morning’s incident. Please allow me to bring you at least something to help with your disturbed sleeping, it would be my pleasure.”

Will hesitates first, but he sounds relieved to receive his company when he finally accepts.

After hanging up, Hannibal makes sure to pack some silkie chicken broth he recently cooked and to bring medicine to help Will sleep better through the night.

Hannibal doesn’t particularly enjoy playing nurse for anyone, but Will may just prove to be his only exception.

As the motor of the Jaguar roars while driving down the highway towards Will’s place, Hannibal can’t help himself thinking that this precariously balanced relationship that he is cultivating with the young agent is something that he can no longer deny cherishing or valuing. If Will Graham must perish, Hannibal vows to himself that it will not be at anyone else’s hand but his own, alone.

He will administer the final blow, if it comes to this.

Until such a fateful day presents itself, nothing prevents him from treasuring Will’s friendship, so rarely given, and having him become unreasonably dependent on his support and judgment, for one day his double life could be discovered and who knew then what would be left standing after the fallout?

Nothing but burning ruins and bitter resentment, he ventures. 

**Author's Note:**

> "The Devil's most devilish when respectable." by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Light.


End file.
